October 27, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

It’s a scenario we’ve all become familiar with after managing shifts toward organic farming. Changes in production practices, adopting new methodologies and technologies, integrating new accountability requirements, transparency, and documentation –  all have the potential to be costly and pose real challenges to advancement. 

We are seeing the same play out for low-carbon, regenerative, and climate-smart farming, as growers are interested and willing, but are faced with steep upfront investment while shouldering heightened levels of risk, sometimes for years, before receiving a financial return on generated carbon credits.

But what if these barriers could be reduced by farmers being prepaid for these future carbon credits? That’s exactly what agtech company eAgronom and global carbon project developer and climate solutions provider South Pole are partnering to accomplish in order to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart farming across the EU, Africa, and beyond.

“Agriculture has a huge part to play in ensuring our future survival on planet Earth,”  said Robin Saluoks, CEO, eAgronom. “eAgronom’s mission is to fight climate change by bringing economic benefits to sustainable farmers through the creation of the highest quality carbon credits for the voluntary carbon market.”

Saluoks continued,“Being able to offer farmers a complete solution from financing, consultancy, implementation, accreditation, measurement and verification means every farmer will be a climate smart farmer in the not so distant future.”  

Under today’s widely accepted carbon credit standards, it can take years to receive payment for the credits generated through carbon-smart projects – a timeline that is generally unacceptable for most farmers.

This novel program introduces the concept of prepaying today for carbon credits that a project will generate tomorrow – giving farmers the support needed to adopt sustainable practices such as cover cropping and reduced tillage.

eAgronom is the only organization in Central and Eastern Europe to launch a project pursuing certification by the Verified Carbon Standard Verra. This initiative is already engaged with 130 farms with nearly 100,000 hectares of cropland. At this rate, the program is expected to generate carbon benefits of between 0.5 – 1.5 t CO2-e per hectare per year by raising organic carbon content in the soil while reducing emissions and input costs related to fossil fuel and fertilizer usage.

“Soil is our livelihood,” said Andrzej Nowak, a farmer in Opolskie Voivodeship, Poland. “It is also home to millions of organisms and has the power to remove carbon from the atmosphere. We feel the weight of responsibility on us to do our utmost to protect our soil, make it resilient to the changing climate, produce food for communities and promote a biodiverse environment.”

“Being part of eAgronom’s carbon programme and being pre-paid for carbon credits has allowed us to embrace regenerative farming in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.”

This access to carbon finance not only benefits farmers, but fosters ESG benefits on a global scale, as it helps the uptake of farming practices in an industry accountable for 17 percent of global carbon emissions.

Certified carbon credits also are a tool through which companies can be accountable for their unavoidable emissions while working on decarbonization toward net-zero, and places a price on their carbon footprint, making an effective systemic tool for financing and accelerating climate action.

“Carbon credits from climate smart agricultural projects provide not only a reduction of emissions but also many social and environmental benefits, which are key at a time when our food system is facing unprecedented challenges,” noted Renal Heuberger, CEO, South Pole.

“We look forward to spearheading a program that drives funds from the voluntary carbon market to hundreds of farmers. These offsets also get the private sector to take climate action today, while they are working on their long term decarbonization strategies.”

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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